Campaign targets lawn chemicals like pesticides

Nice piece here from the Burlington, Vt., paper. Think about this before hiring a lawn chemical crew to visit your home’s biological desert this spring and summer.

Whaling worsens carbon release, scientists say

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8538033.stm

Goodbye (and good riddance) to THE gas guzzler

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/business/25hummer.html?hpw

U.S. Navy rightly concerned about changing climate

Good to see coverage like this from the Stars and Stripes paper (which I was a reader of while stationed in South Korea 1985-86).

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66768

North Carolina and sea turtles

I’ve had many a great trip out to North Carolina’s Outer Banks (Hatteras Island) and had the great pleasure to spot a sea turtle on one occasion. Read about a new development regarding the killing of sea turtles in this message forwarded to me:

Dear Saltwater Angler,

The Karen Beasley Turtle Hospital on Topsail Island filed a lawsuit in Federal Court today against the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries and the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission for allowing the capturing and killing of Sea Turtles in Gill Nets in NC Coastal waters.

Please find the press release from Duke University and the actual complaint that was filed attached above.

The CFRG applauds this move in response to the years of political posturing and neglect of our marine resources for the benefit of the few commercial fishing interests here in NC at the expense of all North Carolinians!  We will keep you updated as events unfold, as we are sure you will be reading and hearing more of this from both television and the printed press.

Read a newspaper’s coverage of the lawsuit here.

Citizens win, big-box developers lose one – finally

http://cbf.typepad.com/bay_daily/2010/02/a-judge-has-ruled-against-a-sprawling-residential-and-big-box-commercial-development-project-on-marylands-eastern-shore-th.html

Report: Contamination from coal ash waste is worse than EPA says

As a resident of the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania (the region that produced the classic mining movie “The Molly Maguires”) I pay a lot of attention to media pieces ab about the rock and the contaminants it yields when burned.

Two environmental groups report that at least 31 cases of coal ash waste contamination in 14 states are not listed by the EPA. Dangerous chemicals include arsenic, selenium, and boron.

Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0224/Report-Contamination-from-coal-ash-waste-is-worse-than-EPA-says

Recirculating aquaculture systems: The future of fish farming?

From the Christian Science Monitor (a great in-depth newspaper):

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2010/0224/Recirculating-aquaculture-systems-The-future-of-fish-farming

3 Calif. condors die of lead poisoning in Ariz.

Bad news for the condor recovery program – and more evidence of just how bad a contaminant lead has become.

Butterflies impacted by climate change, habitat destruction

No surprise on the latter part of the headline as that’s always been the case. But new scientific findings show an incontrovertible connection between declining Lepidopteran populations and climate change. Read here.